All things Maiden

FEATURE FRIDAY: Maiden Exits

Besides Steve Harris, only two members in the history of Iron Maiden have never left the band. Do you know who? Read on for a guide to Maiden’s numerous line-up changes, as we take a look at the people who fell by the wayside. From Doug Sampson to Blaze Bayley, here are the “Maiden Exits”, and why they happened.

The current Iron Maiden line-up has been stable for nearly 20 years, by far the longest run in the band’s history. Indeed, many fans can’t imagine a different version of the band. But Maiden’s current stability was completely unthinkable in earlier days. In the beginning, there was one line-up change for every album.

Why? The reasons vary from creative differences to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, and this edition of our in-depth column Feature Friday takes a closer look.

But there is not enough room here to chronicle the endless line-up changes that plagued Steve Harris‘ new band in the years of formation, 1975 to 1979. We’ll start our story as the band was getting ready to record their debut album, Iron Maiden, at the end of 1979.

Even before they could get going, there was a line-up change…

DOUG SAMPSON (1978-1979)
He never appeared on a Maiden album, but drummer Doug Sampson was the heartbeat of recordings such as the legendary Soundhouse Tapes EP, the Metal For Muthas tracks, and also the B-side of the first Maiden single, Running Free, were he appears on the track Burning Ambition.

Doug Sampson, far left, in a short-lived 1979 Iron Maiden line-up, just prior to the recording of their debut album.

Just before the recording of Iron Maiden’s first album, Sampson had to admit that he wasn’t up to the rigours of the road. Travelling the country, eating crap food, drinking too much, and sleeping in the back of a freezing van, the young drummer found himself sick all the time.

Band chief Harris was worried that the drummer, who he had also played with in their previous band Smiler, wasn’t cut out for the job. “I had some sleepless nights over it,” Harris later admitted, having felt close to the drummer both personally and musically.

Doug Sampson bashes the kit for Maiden at a Ruskin Arms gig in East London in late 1979. (Photo by Keith Wilfort, published by Loopy World.)

Sampson was a signatory to Maiden’s first record deal with EMI, but he was soon out of the band and had to see his friends rise to fame and fortune without him. “We just couldn’t take any chances, at that time,” says Harris. The big tours Maiden had coming up demanded a completely reliable drummer, one who wouldn’t be worn out by the pressure or the lifestyle. Sampson was bitterly disappointed, but would later say that he understood Harris’ point of view. He admits now that “the truth is – I don’t think I could have handled it.”

Doug Sampson was let go from Iron Maiden just before Christmas 1979. He was a fair drummer, but not as solid as his replacement Clive Burr.

Harris probably did well to replace him.

DENNIS STRATTON (1979-1980)
He was in the band for just one year, but is forever ingrained in Maiden’s history because he played on the debut record. Maiden’s search for a second guitarist to complement Dave Murray led them to the slightly older and more experienced Dennis Stratton.

Dennis Stratton, guitarist on the first Iron Maiden album and their first major tours.

This “Maiden Exit” can not be described as amicable. Stratton fell out in a major way with both Harris and manager Rod Smallwood. One part of this had to do with Harris’ suspicion (not altogether inaccurate) that the new guitarist was not 100 percent into the Maiden thing. During recording of the debut album, when Stratton added massive Queen-style harmony vocals and guitars to Phantom Of The Opera without Harris’ consent, things got ugly. Harris and Smallwood ordered all of Stratton’s harmony work removed.

A similar situation arose when Maiden later recorded their single Women In Uniform. Stratton and Burr added vocal overdubs to the mix when Harris wasn’t around, and the band chief exploded when he heard it. Harris admits that he “just went fucking nuts! I had to walk out, I was that pissed off.” The person Harris was the most pissed off with was producer Tony Platt, but he also started questioning Stratton’s place in the band.

A more serious problem developed during Maiden’s tour as special guests to KISS in Europe in 1980. Stratton didn’t like travelling with the band day in and day out, and spent much of his time travelling with the crew or hanging out with KISS. Manager Smallwood saw it as a threat to Maiden’s unity at this crucial stage, and made Stratton aware that he was to hang out with his own band.

Maiden supported KISS in Drammen, Norway in late 1980, and this gig turned out to be Dennis Stratton’s last with the band.

The guitarist resented this, and things got uglier. Harris insists that Stratton “seemed to be negative about a lot of things” and that he would “sometimes get a bit aggressive when he’d had a few beers.” Maybe more seriously, Harris claims that Stratton had issues with Maiden’s musical direction: “He questioned a lot of the fundamental things we were trying to do.”

Smallwood had been unsure about the hiring of Stratton to begin with and kept confronting the guitarist, who would later complain that the manager “even started having a go at me about the music I was listening to.” Without a shadow of doubt, the writing was on the wall for Stratton as guitar player in Iron Maiden.

Frankly, it’s easy to see how Stratton would be agitated by the manager’s dictates, and it’s also easy to agree with him that Maiden were a little too young to understand the need for space on the road. But it’s equally easy to understand that the band felt uncomfortable with a guitarist who was a little older, and a little too cocky after having been in the band just a few months. In any case, Maiden’s rise would have been in question if they didn’t get Adrian Smith to join the band. Stratton was filed away under “good riddance” and quickly forgotten by both band and fans.

Dennis Stratton played his last Maiden concert in Norway at the end of the KISS tour, and just about appeared (not too easy to spot him) in the video for Women In Uniform, before being fired in late 1980.

One album, one man down.

PAUL DI’ANNO (1978-1981)
The unmistakable voice of early Iron Maiden, Paul Di’Anno sang on the first two records, Iron Maiden (1980) and Killers (1981). But he was to be the second casualty of Maiden’s first album line-up. A real character, jack-the-lad, “the beast” as he calls himself, Di’Anno’s penchant for fast living would eventually part him from a band that were very serious indeed about developing their career.

Paul Di’Anno, right, rocking out with Dave Murray.

It’s the well-known tale of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. The singer would stay up for days partying, and consequently loose his voice or otherwise be in so terrible physical and emotional shape that gigs would be cancelled. This never sat well with Harris and manager Smallwood, who deemed Di’Anno’s behaviour a clear and present threat to Maiden’s progress.

Harris stated at the time that “if it had been because he was doing too many gigs I’d have every sympathy.” But it was clearly alcohol and drugs that impaired Di’Anno, and Maiden was growing into ever bigger obligations: “We couldn’t afford to keep playing gigs where he wasn’t putting in 100 percent, where it was half-hearted, or worse still, blowing out.”

Di’Anno, for his part, has never denied the effects the rock’n’roll lifestyle had on his ability to deliver what Maiden required of him. But he also insists that he was getting tired of the heavily scheduled Maiden routine at that point. “I’d had a bellyful,” he said later. “I didn’t get into rock’n’roll to keep to schedules and have meetings and make sure I get my eight hours’ beauty sleep every night.”

He also claims that he wasn’t entirely happy with the musical direction the band was heading in, beginning with Killers. Whether this is hindsight or foresight, one can not know for sure. Harris was completely blunt about the issue three decades later: “Paul was totally fucked up.”

Paul Di’Anno somewhere in the US on the Killers tour in 1981, not too long before his time in Maiden was up. (Photo by Keith Wilfort, published by Loopy World.)

The fact of the matter is that Maiden went on to recruit a singer who had the kind of voice Harris had wanted to begin with – Bruce Dickinson. And how would they ever have conquered the world without him? Even Di’Anno applauded the choice, and has later stated in no uncertain terms that he thinks “Bruce is absolutely the best singer the band have ever had.”

Dickinson claims that he was actually asked to join Maiden before Di’Anno had formally been given the boot. Which has to be the case since Dickinson was approached when his band Samson appeared at the 1981 Reading Festival on August 29. At that point Maiden still had a handful of shows left on the Killers tour, and Dickinson asked Smallwood “what’s gonna happen to Paul, the current singer, and does he know he’s going?”

Dickinson remembers that there was talk of leaving for Scandinavia when he auditioned for the band, and Maiden did play their last few shows with Di’Anno in Sweden and Denmark in early September. “The niceties of filling a dead man’s shoes did not sit comfortably with me,” Dickinson remembers. “But it wasn’t my soap opera. At least not yet.”

All of this would certainly be indicative of Maiden’s frustration with their original singer during the Killers tour, but also that they didn’t dare to let Di’Anno go before a replacement was secured. This story would repeat itself many years later as Dickinson was once again on his way in.

By all accounts an amicable split, even if it did come with a bit of drama, Paul Di’Anno parted ways with Iron Maiden in late 1981.

Two albums, two men down.

CLIVE BURR (1979-1982)
The energetic and ever-smiling Clive Burr handled the drums masterfully on Maiden’s first three albums, culminating with the groundbreaking The Number Of The Beast in 1982. Bruce Dickinson once stated that Burr was “the best drummer the band ever had.” That bit of opinion was uttered when the singer was out of Maiden in the 1990s, and seemed designed as a dig at his former bandmates. But Burr’s importance to the Maiden legacy is huge.

Despite his obvious talent and his charming demeanor, the much-admired drummer was another casualty of the rock’n’roll lifestyle that came with Maiden’s growing popularity in the early 1980s. Or was that really the case?

Previously reliable on stage, Burr started having performance trouble on the 1982 Beast On The Road tour. Often hitting the stage while nursing a hangover, just the same as certain other people in the band, Burr started to let his playing suffer. Cardinal sin. Harris wouldn’t tolerate it for long.

Guitarist Adrian Smith recalls the trouble of “keeping it together for the rest of us when he was having an off night, which he was having more and more as time went by.” And Harris, by then used to band members succumbing to the lifestyle, and worried about getting through the tour, remembers a night when Burr “spent most of the gig throwing up into a bucket at the side of his kit.”

Dickinson claims that there was more than drugs and booze about this “Maiden Exit”, pointing to little things on tour that somehow ballooned into major things. Small frictions escalated into Burr’s estrangement from Harris, according to the singer, and “slowly yet surely niggles and arguments crept in backstage.” An inevitable slide towards Burr’s exit was in motion: “Clive’s luggage was an issue – Clive got more luggage,” Dickinson says in retrospect. “Steve jumped on the drum riser, telling him to play faster – Clive slowed down.”

The inescapable implication of Dickinson’s statements seems to be that Harris already had his mind set on Nicko McBrain succeeding Burr as soon as possible. Indeed, McBrain says that Burr called him from the road, telling his soon-to-be replacement that he knew the band were eyeing McBrain as the new Maiden drummer.

“It got to everybody, in the end,” says Smith. No matter what the root cause was, at the conclusion of the tour in December 1982 Clive Burr was fired from the band that had made him famous.

ADRIAN SMITH (1980-1990)
Flash forward several years, and Smith would find himself the next member to leave the band. But this time the reasons were very different and much more complex than a question of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Having been an integral part of Maiden’s meteoric rise in the 1980s, Smith came to a fork in the road as the 1990s dawned.

Adrian Smith on stage with Iron Maiden in 1985.

The writer of timeless Maiden cuts like The Prisoner, Flight Of Icarus, 2 Minutes To Midnight, Wasted Years, and Can I Play With Madness, Smith’s importance to Maiden’s success can not be overestimated. He blossomed as writer and guitarist throughout the 1980s, peaking with the seminal albums Somewhere In Time (1986) and Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (1988).

When the news came in early 1990 that he was leaving the band, fans were in shock. At this point, the line-up had been stable for seven years! They had released four classic studio albums, including Piece Of Mind (1983) and Powerslave (1984), as well as the double live behemoth Live After Death (1985).

What happened? The received wisdom at the time, in papers and magazines, was that Smith had finally decided to follow his more commercial instincts, those that got a free reign on his solo album Silver And Gold in 1989. Surely, the originator of some of Maiden’s most poppy songs felt the need to leave Maiden’s heavy metal behind?

Adrian with his 1989 solo band, ASAP.

The truth was very different. When Maiden regrouped in early 1990 to start writing a new album, it seems that people in the band had different ideas about how to proceed, but not along the lines most would expect. Smith was very happy with the direction of the previous two records, and was dismayed to learn that Harris and Dickinson wanted a more stripped-down and back-to-basics approach for the new album.

“I didn’t want to do that,” Smith said later. Neither did he think it was a good idea to get a mobile recording studio in after just a few weeks, when the original intention had been to write together for 3 months.

Dickinson later recalled that Smith “wasn’t fired, but he didn’t quit entirely willingly. […] It came to a big discussion one day before No Prayer For The Dying. And it started off with him suggesting that maybe we should write more than eight songs per album.” In short, Smith wanted to continue in the style of Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, and he wanted the band to spend more time writing than they usually did.

Smith was never going to win that one, and was pushed to leave Iron Maiden in early 1990, as work progressed on their new album.

The classic Maiden line-up fell apart in early 1990.

In retrospect, Adrian has opened up a bit more about what made him unhappy at that time. Not only did he disagree about the musical direction of the album they were about to record, but he also had a problem with the band’s live performances. As he says, “We used to play the songs too fast. We came up with some really interesting songs at the time, but we were just kind of choking the life out of them just playing them too fast.”

Adrian was unhappy with Maiden’s live performances and had to face the reality that he didn’t agree with their direction in the studio either. End of the line, in other words.

This was the first “Maiden Exit” that would lead into a period of declining fortunes for the band, whether it was due to Smith’s leaving or not.

Many fans certainly feel that this was a major negative turn of events for the band. Even Harris later confessed that he thought “maybe Maiden lost something when Adrian left.”

The years of stability were over.

BRUCE DICKINSON (1981-1993)
A time of upheaval for Maiden got even more intense in early 1993, when the singer announced his decision to leave the band he had fronted for more than a decade. In three years, the band had lost two of their chief songwriters and even one of their most identifiable features – the voice.

Bruce Dickinson on stage in 1990, with the Wolfsbane singer that would eventually succeed him in Iron Maiden, Blaze Bayley.

A strong personality, with a fierce individualist streak, Dickinson had by that point already been through a period of considering his “Maiden Exit”. His first doubts about his future with the band came in 1986, as they were working on the Somewhere In Time album. Dickinson envisioned a different sound and style for that record, thinking that it was time for Maiden to make some drastic changes.

This notion, as well as Dickinson’s semi-acoustic and folksy songs, were nixed by the rest of the band and producer Martin Birch.

The singer was deeply hurt by the rejection, and later mused that “perhaps I should have left in 1986.” He didn’t, soldiered on through recording and touring, and eventually played a major role on the subsequent 1988 album Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, where he co-wrote half of the record’s songs with Smith and Harris.

Firmly back in the fold, Dickinson had no thoughts of leaving Iron Maiden as the 1990s dawned, even though some observers speculated that he was on the way out when he recorded his solo album Tattooed Millionaire (1990). Not so, according to Bruce, who claims he was happy and energized when working on Maiden’s first 1990s albums No Prayer For The Dying (1990) and Fear Of The Dark (1992).

Maiden recorded Fear Of The Dark in 1992, which seemed to be Dickinson’s swan song with the band.

But then something of an artistic identity crisis hit him. Dickinson started to feel a strong urge to explore musical territory he now realized he would never see with Maiden. In 1992 and early 1993 he worked on a second solo album. The first attempt reportedly sounded too much like what people would expect from himself and Maiden. Producer Chris Tsangarides recalls that “[it] was a bit heavier […] And I think possibly a load of the tunes should have been for Maiden, maybe.”

Manager Smallwood intervened. He took the singer aside and told him that a solo project should really be different from Maiden if it was to have any merit. And thus was set in motion the soul searching that would lead to Dickinson’s departure from Iron Maiden.

Dickinson promptly flew to L.A. and started another second album attempt with producer Keith Olsen. The results were extremely different, to say the least. The singer decided against releasing it, but he had by now come to terms with the choice he had to make: Stay in Maiden and never find out what else he could do, or take the plunge. For an artist of Dickinson’s ambition and restlessness, the choice was obvious.

And so he announced that the A Real Live Tour in 1993 would be his last as Maiden’s singer. In retrospect the best thing to do would have been to tell people after the tour, not before it, as Maiden’s 1993 European trek quickly degenerated into media shit-digging and accusations from the band and crew of below-par vocal performances.

Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden after a final concert in August 1993, the rather idiotic pay-per-view spectacle Raising Hell. The door was now open to Blaze Bayley, and Maiden’s biggest shift in sound for 12 years.

BLAZE BAYLEY (1993-1999)
Just a few years later, the pendulum swung back and hit Bayley painfully in the face as 1999 dawned. Maiden’s fortunes were at an all-time low pretty much everywhere except South America, and changes were brewing behind closed doors. Bayley would soon be asked to leave Maiden, to make room for the return of his own predecessor.

Dickinson and Bayley in recent years, proving there are no hard feelings between them after the latter was asked to step aside for the return of the former in early 1999.

Bayley was 100 % loyal and dedicated to the cause of Iron Maiden. No one argues that he ever gave less than all he had for a band that he truly loved. Because of this, Bayley won the respect of Maiden fans, even though many of them never approved of his vocal performances.

There is no doubt that the work ethic and energy embodied by Bayley and Smith-replacement Janick Gers helped Maiden survive a decade that was very difficult for older heavy metal bands. The 1990s would not necessarily have been a happier time for Maiden had Dickinson stayed. But all the same, Harris chose a replacement for Dickinson who was simply unable to sing much of the Dickinson era material, due to his much lower vocal register.

Two issues arise out of this. First, why didn’t Maiden detune to help Bayley out? Granted, it would have been another big change in the band’s sound, but the alternative was to have Bayley struggle embarrassingly to deliver Maiden classics that were written for a very different singer. Second, why didn’t they perform more Di’Anno era material that would have suited Bayley better? Songs like Phantom Of The Opera, Charlotte The Harlot and Killers would have been welcomed back to the setlist by the fans.

The Bayley-fronted Iron Maiden would release two studio albums before Blaze was asked to leave on the eve of a third record.

It might not have mattered much. Maiden’s record sales were at an all-time low, with the Bayley albums The X Factor (1995) and Virtual XI (1998) seeing a steady decline. Concert attendance had also dropped to a tiny fraction of what the band had enjoyed in their heyday. It was clear to manager Smallwood that these fortunes could not be reversed with Bayley at the front of the stage, struggling to sing the classics fans wanted to enjoy.

Bayley himself claims that a combination of vocal strain, sound issues on stage, and recurring allergy problems all exacerbated his vocal difficulties at the time. Be that as it may, it was obvious to anyone who saw Maiden live back then, and to anyone who watches those clips on YouTube these days, that even a Bayley on top form was utterly unable to sing songs like The Trooper and Hallowed Be Thy Name. Not to mention that beloved classics like Children Of The Damned, Run To The Hills, The Prisoner, Where Eagles Dare, Aces High, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Wasted Years would never have returned with Bayley as Maiden’s singer.

In truth, it remains a mystery why Harris would hire him, when the chief had no intention of tuning down to accommodate Bayley’s vocal range. It’s hard to see how that nightly struggle, trying to sing outside of his register, wouldn’t damage his voice and further compromise his performances. Did Harris not understand this…?

Bayley on stage with Maiden in 1998.

Smallwood finally convinced Harris that Bayley would have to go, preferably to make way for a reunion with Dickinson, the one voice everyone knew could deliver the goods night after night. It’s impossible not to feel bad for Bayley, a lesser replacement for a vocal legend, forced to take a blow that must have been incredibly hard on his self-confidence.

Blaze Bayley was the last member to leave Maiden, in January 1999. He was the singer in Maiden’s third longest surviving line-up, but also the least commercially successful since the very beginning of their career.

The seventh man down since the band started work on their first album.

So who were left standing?

THE SURVIVORS
Both Dickinson and Smith came back to Iron Maiden in early 1999 for a hugely successful reunion. This line-up released their fifth studio album in 2015, and have done numerous record-breaking world tours. Maiden’s status as the world’s premier metal band was well and truly restored, and their popularity these days is far beyond even their glorious 1980s period.

This reunion also reduced the number of ex-members by two. It’s interesting to note that the only ones to return to Harris’ band are the two that most clearly left for seriously artistic reasons, not as a consequence of personal conflicts or performance challenges. Harris made a statement by taking them back: He values their points of view, their musical abilities and their songwriting, and sees that this diversity is vital to Maiden’s status and longevity.

It’s also interesting to note that besides Harris, only two members of the band have never left. Even the ever smiling Dave Murray was once fired from Maiden in the very early days, though not by Harris. Joining an early incarnation of Iron Maiden in late 1976, Murray didn’t last long before falling out with eccentric singer Dennis Wilcock and scheming guitarist Bob Sawyer.

A very upset Murray had to pack up his guitar and leave, later recalling that being fired from Maiden “was quite painful” because he “believed in it and loved it so much.” He was later invited back by Harris when the line-up fell apart. The Maiden chief knew he wanted Murray in the band more than anyone else, and the rest is history.

So, in actual fact, the only people to join Iron Maiden and never, ever leave, are drummer Nicko McBrain and guitarist Janick Gers. The former has now been in Maiden for more than 35 years, while the latter has clocked up an impressive 28 years of non-stop Maidening.

After decades of struggles and changes, with only the 1983-1988 period seeing a stable and commercially successful line-up, Maiden finally arrived at their ultimate line-up.

Here’s to many more years of no changes!

Primary sources: Stockholm, Sunday April 28 1996 (bookofhours.net, 1996), Run To The Hills – The Official Biography (Mick Wall, 2001), The History Of Iron Maiden Part 1: The Early Days (DVD, 2004), Metal Hammer Iron Maiden Special (2005), Bruce Dickinson – Flashing Metal With Iron Maiden And Flying Solo (Joe Shooman, 2007), Blaze Bayley – At The End Of The Day (Lawrence Paterson, 2009), The Beast (Paul Di’Anno, 2010), Classic Rock’s “Iron Maiden: Hope And Glory” (Paul Elliot, 2011), The History Of Iron Maiden, Part 3: Maiden England (DVD, 2013), Kerrang!: Maiden Heaven (2014), What Does This Button Do? (Bruce Dickinson, 2017).

DiAnno getting the boot.
Smith leaving, although I really believe that if Smith would have stayed with them through the 90s, we wouldn’t have had them today. In hindsight, both Dickinson and Smith departure were for the best as in the end it really showed Steve how much Maiden meant with them on board.

Excellent article! I would like to add – belately, 1,5 years later, but oh well!- Clive’s point of view. Clive refused to be interviewed for “Run to the Hills” (working as a cab driver at the time) but before the end he talked openly to Classic Rock Magazine. Clearly bitter but never one to attack the band (unlike everyone who ever left, and had less reason to have a go at Harris especially, Clive was full of dignity all the way). In short, Clive refused the accusations about his playing. He claimed instead that Steve had his eye on Nicko for some time (the story checks out even from the official stand point and Loopy’s account of the early days) and Maiden fired him when he took a break to attend his father’s funeral of all things. Now, it’s a rotten thing to do but given the Axiom “What Harry wants, Harry gets” and Clive’s own reluctance to talk about it for years I think it’s ultimately true. Besides, talking things out was never Steve’s forte back in the 80’s (as evidenced by Adrian’s exit as well).
On another note, a departure that cost Maiden was Martin Birch. Although he left on his own and he wasn’t a member per se of course, his sound was a crucial part of Maiden that they never got back. How about an article about Maiden’s associates that have exited over the years? Derek Riggs fits in as well!

In my personal opinion, it was a huge mistake of Clive to refuse to be interviewed for the official book. But he could have had solid personal reasons for that which had nothing to do with Maiden or the book project. After all, it was around the time he found out he was seriously ill. He did talk in the DVD documentary about the early days, but the reasons for his leaving were not really dug into there by either him or the band. If Clive is right, that doesn’t just say that Steve is lying, it also says that Adrian is lying since Adrian backs up Steve’s point of view on this 100%.

As for Steve “having his eye” on Nicko for some time, that is actually true anyway. Nicko himself admits he was in the loop during the Beast tour. It seems obvious to me that Steve started thinking about a replacement when he got frustrated with Clive’s uneven performances. Don’t forget, Steve actually states that he considered cancelling the ongoing tour because of Clive’s problems…

And Clive knew he was in trouble, and called Nicko! This is all in the book, and gives a very clear view of what really happened.

It’s no surprise that Clive would deny that his drumming suffered. It’s the same with Bruce, who denied that his singing was sub-par on his farewell tour. Two stories. Which do we believe?

We’ve mostly been concentrating on the 1980s for our first year or so of writing, since Maiden have been doing 1980s reissues and a 1980s retro tour. But as we move along there will most definitely be features about the 1990s, which brought the departures of Smith, Dickinson, and also Birch and Riggs, as you say.

I know Dennis Willcoco and I fully understand why Clive refused to be interviewed as he knew what he said would be edited or twisted to fit the Maiden version of the events the brand there used to be a band has told so many lies about its early years it has forgot the truth…stories of Dave Murray and I quote “beat the living daylights out of Dennis Willcock” when Dave was every bid the hippy stoner back then and has never been a hard man I could go on all day just dont believe anything written before Paul Dianno joined and take everything else with a pinch of salt. There is a reason the early members were not interviewed and those that did had things cherry picked for the early days DVD also a load of shite which is a pitty as the told truth should have been told then…

I don’t know what or who you’re quoting there about Dave and Wilcock, but I’m sure you have a point. On the other hand, the official bio contains completely frank versions of events from Dennis Stratton and Bruce Dickinson, which are not at all putting Steve or Rod in a positive light. So I don’t think it’s fair to label the book edited or twisted to fit the Maiden version, and say that Clive wouldn’t have had a fair shake if he talked. After all, this is the book were Bruce responds to Steve’s criticism of his 1993 live singing by saying “that’s absolute crap.”

Rod was talking to Bruce about it behind Steve’s back it seems. When Blaze was fired there was a meeting between Rod, Steve and Bruce to clear the air. We’ll do in-depth features about the events of the 1990s at some point in the future!

I believe it’s been said at interviews at the time that Janick had something to do with it too, albeit to what extent it’s not clear. It’s only logical though as he was the only member at the time that had remained close to Bruce (in the official biography he’s the only one that refuses that Bruce’s singing was crap at that fateful final tour). Also, as far as the earlier comment about Dennis and Davey is concerned, everyone was allowed his fair say at the official biography and there were some harsh things said – believe me, I’ve read a ton of biographies over the years (most of us have I suppose) and I’ve seldom found such “brutality” even at the unofficial ones. Bruce even said to Steve “I don’t intend to make a country and Western album” when they met about the reunion, echoing a statement made by Harry on that book. I think that’s why the band chose Mick Wall in the first place, since, in his own admission, he’s not Maiden’s biggest fan. That’s not to say that Clive’s concern wasn’t valid, especially if you take into account my earlier comment about his departure. But in the end I believe he would’ve been treated fair.

Ηi Christer! I can see your reply in my mail but not here for some reason. Yes I did mean “denies” not “refuses” – I need an editor it seems. And I suppose you’re right about Janick, it’s been a while since I’ve read “Run to the Hills”, I’m slipping (yes, I just need an excuse to re-read it!) The fact is Janick had something to do with Bruce’s return but if I had to guess nothing too imporetant. I include your reply below. Cheers!
@Mario: It’s not accurate that Janick refuses, or I suppose you mean denies, that Bruce’s singing was crap. He declines to make a comment about the issue for the book. Important difference!

I’ve no idea why that post has disappeared from the thread… My only point was that Janick has never said Bruce wasn’t below par on the Real Live Tour, he simply hasn’t said anything about it. Thanks for posting my post!

Somehow, I just know it in my bones that Harry chose the weaker replacement for Bruce — after all, Blaze was picked over Doogie, who could have sang the shit out everything in the library — and purposely kept him weak because he had every intention of getting Bruce back into the band. Whether or not he was conscious about it, I can’t say. But, yes, I absolutely believe without a doubt that Blaze was fired after Bruce agreed to return.

I’m not a fan of Doogie’s tone of voice, personally, but there’s no doubt he would have had zero issues with range and pitch, which was Blaze’s major problems. He even has pitch problems on the studio recordings, which is incredible.

It’s interesting that Blaze says different things in different places. In the Maiden book it’s “nothing was decided” and in his own book it’s Rod answering “yes” when Blaze asks if Bruce is coming back… I guess both are true. Forces in Maiden wanted Bruce back, but Steve hadn’t yet talked it over with him. Anyway, that’s my guess.